Santa Barbara to Update Safety Plans with New Fire Hazard Zone Maps

New maps highlight areas with a higher risk of fire to improve planning and protection.

On March 10, 2025, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) released updated maps showing areas with higher hazard of fires. These maps focus on areas that local cities and counties are responsible for protecting, called Local Responsibility Areas (LRA), and now include LRA lands within the city. This long-awaited release is the result of several years of work, which first focused on State Responsibility Area (SRA) lands.  

The new maps were created using advanced computer models that show how fires and flying embers might spread. These models also looked at things like past fires, weather, and how close an area is to open land or forests. Local jurisdiction maps are the final phase of this state-wide project. 

The City of Santa Barbara has a very comprehensive Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) that has already identified fire hazard severity zones. First released in 2004 and the most recent update in 2021, the CWPP provides areas of concern, a plan for hazard mitigation and a comprehensive view of approaching our wildland urban interface issues.

For the most part, our CWPP has already identified the new hazardous areas in the latest CAL FIRE map release. The CWPP has identified the Foothill and Extreme Foothill areas (known at the State level as “High Fire” and “Very High Fire”).

Additionally, the CWPP has previously identified areas near the coastline as “Coastal” and “Coastal Interior” hazard zones. The new CAL FIRE maps have incorporated some of this area of concern.

Cities like Santa Barbara must follow state rules and use the new CAL FIRE maps when making decisions about fire safety. One limitation of the LRA maps is that they are based on computerized models of fire and ember spread. They did not take into account geographic considerations such as streets and individual properties.

Over the next two months, the City Fire Department will be working to merge our CWPP maps with the new LRA maps. The new maps show that more areas in Santa Barbara are now considered a hazard. This includes parts of the Mesa neighborhood, especially near Cliff Drive and Flora Vista, and areas in the northern parts of San Roque and La Cumbre. New Moderate,  High, and Very High-Fire zones have been created by CAL FIRE in these areas. The Fire Department will be incorporating these zones but will further align them with streets and neighborhoods.

Within the next three months the Fire Department will be reviewing and incorporating these changes from Cal Fire through local ordinance. 

View maps of:

• Existing High Fire Hazard Areas
• CalFire’s Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ)
• Proposed High Fire Hazard Areas for 2025

For further information and to learn more about fire hazard severity zones from Cal Fire, please visit Fire Hazard Severity Zones.

For information about the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), maps, and frequently asked questions, visit Community Wildfire Protection Plan - SantaBarbaraCA.gov/CWPP.